The Birthday Present
by gythia
Summary: A sequel to the Loribond series, many years after.


Loribond Sequel: the Birthday Present

A sequel to the Loribond series, many years later

They ambushed him in the repair yard. He was only a few yards from the junker he had flown in on, but there were so many crusted barrels, piles of equipment, scattered tools, can tows, robots, and old ships venting steam that he might as well have been in a jungle. When they jumped him, he could not have fled to his ship.

Instead, he stood and fought. He had almost been a Ranger once, and he still carried a Minbari Fighting Pike. He extended it and downed three of his attackers before they threw the net on him. He brought down another one with a head-butt after he was in the net.

But then they tossed the ropes over the net and tightened them down, and hauled him away like cargo.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Lennier called to his attackers.

They did not answer. They lifted him in a surprisingly careful way into a nondescript transport ship, making sure he was not harmed. Then they deposited him in a stateroom. The door was locked, but it was hardly a cell. He worked his way out of the ropes and net in a matter of minutes.

Lennier discovered there were no tools with which he could gimmick the lock. But his every comfort had been provided for. The room was carpeted in deep green, and the large human style bed and its gold-and-velvet coverlet was scattered with velvet wedges, so that he could adjust the angle of repose, just as a Minbari sleeping platform could be adjusted.

There was food in abundance on the table, and a crystal decanter of water. No knives, but spoons and forks.

They had taken his Pike, but had left candles and a book-viewer by the fruit tray. As the ship took off, Minbari music began playing in the cabin. Whoever his abductors were, they did not appear to mean him any harm. But appearances could be deceiving.

When they reached the maze of corridors—space station? Underground colony?—where the ship docked, Lennier tried to ask them again who they were and wanted they wanted from him. But they did not say.

Lennier tried to escape when he spotted a side tunnel that might lead to a way out. He got one of his captors in a choke hold and tried to use him as a shield as he walked backwards down the side tunnel, but they stunned both of them, and he woke up in a luxurious suite of rooms, like a fine hotel. Except that the only view was a viewscreen, and it only played recorded entertainment.

He was given clothes, food, real paper books from a dozen different races, heavy on religious texts. The suite's bathing facilities could have seated a party of twelve easily in the spa alone, but… there he was, in the spa, alone.

Whenever he saw one of his kidnappers he tried to speak to them. They never answered, but Lennier eventually guessed. They were mostly humans, but they also included two Drozzi and a Centauri. They must be mercenaries. And they must be doing this because someone was paying them to. But who? And what did he want?

Time passed. It seemed like months, but his captors could have been either compressing or extending time by bringing his meals at longer or shorter intervals.

Lennier tried to escape several times. One time, he was surrounded and stunned. Another time, he took a wrong turn in the maze and locked himself in an empty warehouse for days, until they finally found him. He was too glad for the water they brought him to fight again then.

After that, they set up a trap right outside the door of his suite. When he tried to escape, a glass partition slammed down on either side of him, blocking him from the corridor. A white gas started pumping in.

At first, he thought it must be knockout gas. Then he realized it was not affecting him, it was just for show. But for what?

Then one of the mercenaries came up to the barrier that led away from his suite. The man put out a hand as if to release the wall, hesitated, then turned and walked away.

Realization hit Lennier's heart like a hammer.

When the barrier behind him rose up, Lennier fled back to his suite and slammed the door on the trap outside. Then he slid to the floor, back against the door, and put his head in his hands in despair.

He did not try to escape again.

One day, a squad of mercenaries carrying stunners came to take him away. They loaded him aboard a spaceship. He did not see the outside, but the inside seemed consistent with a sleek, fast yacht. His chambers were not large, but were packed with luxuries.

When the mercenary who brought him his breakfast spoke to him, Lennier jumped up in shock. No one had spoken to him in months. "Clean up," ordered the mercenary. "Then get into the suit in the closet."

Lennier saw no reason not to comply, so he did as they told him. The suit was the latest Minbari fashion, but was cut of the same cloth of rich maroon he had worn as Delenn's assistant, before his miserable attempt to become a Ranger. Before he tried to be a normal friend and help Delenn move, and threw it all away.

The ship landed. They tossed a white sheet over him and carried him out, unresisting. They pulled the sheet off of him inside a sort of box or gazebo covered with bright cloth. A cage. He was in a cage.

There was a bench in the cage. A mercenary pointed to it in silent command, and Lennier sat down. Another mercenary pulled him over to one side, leaving room for someone else to sit down. Lennier's hands were chained to the bench, but in a natural pose as if he were just resting them at his side. The mercenary taped his mouth, and then they left.

He was alone in the cage, or tent. The sides of the tent flowed in the breeze, silk in a riot of colors. Then Sheridan came into the tent.

"Hello, Lennier. You probably have plenty you'd like to say. Maybe some of it is an apology. But you'll understand if I don't trust you to say one word to me."

Sheridan walked over to him and set a key down on the bench beside Lennier, out of reach. "Just insurance that my gift won't wander off. My return was once your gift to her. Now your return is my gift. I don't trust you with me, but I do trust you with Delenn. I know you'd never harm her. Your absence is a knife in her heart, and I won't stand for it."

Sheridan set down what seemed to be a rock at first glance, next to the key.

"Do you recognize this?"

Lennier looked closely at it. It was not stone, but the fused metal of a blasted starship hull, superheated by an explosion and supercooled by the absolute zero of space, in rapid succession.

Sheridan had once kept that same chunk of debris on his desk. Lennier remembered their conversation when he had explained what it was.

Back then Lennier was still wearing the gold of his caste. He forgot was conversation had preceded it; doubtless some piece of business about the Shadow War. He had turned to go, and then turned back and said, "They say that thing on your desk is a chunk of the wreckage of the Blackstar."

"They say right," Sheridan had responded, smiling as usual.

"In my study of Earth history, I have read about the taking of scalps. Trophies of victory. Souvenirs of those you have killed. Is that a scalp, Captain Sheridan?"

"What? No. It's a symbol of hope. A reminder that the impossible is possible."

"Then you do not keep that there to shock Minbari visitors?"

"Of course not. I'd like to see this be a symbol of hope to everyone, Minbari included. We're going to win this war, Lennier. The Shadows are ancient. We don't have a clue how their technology works. But I've been in this position before." And Sheridan had smiled that smile of his.

Lennier nodded.

"The impossible is possible," Sheridan repeated, in the present time. "If I thought I had a chance to be with Delenn forever, I wouldn't encourage you. But I don't, and we both know it. My days are numbered. Someday I'm going to grow old and die while Delenn is still young. My elven princess, who fell in love with a mortal man. No one and nothing will fill the hole I'm going to leave in her heart. But there's no need to leave two holes. When I'm gone, come back to her. Comfort her."

Lennier nodded again.

"Good. She'll never love you the way she loves me. But she'll also never love me the way she loves you. Every love is unique. Like snowflakes."

Sheridan put a card underneath the stone of hope.

Sheridan left the cage. One of the mercenaries came back in and removed the gag. Then Lennier was alone again. He saw the shadows of the mercenaries from outside the tent, moving in the light, winding a red ribbon around the cage.

Lennier heard Sheridan's voice. "Tie the bow right there. Good. Perfect. It's beautiful. Is the ship ready? Then let's go."

"Destination, sir?" asked one of the mercenaries.

"Away, pilot. Just away. Away from it all."

Delenn woke up alone in the bed. All the curtains had been pulled, to fool her into thinking it was still early. She got up and the light streamed in.

"John?" she called, smiling. "I know you got up early to prepare some birthday surprise." She walked around their rooms, looking for him and for something in a box tied with ribbon.

"I found this human idea of celebrating an event one could not possibly remember to be quite peculiar when you first told me about it," Delenn remarked, thinking Sheridan must be in the next room. "But I've grown to anticipate your Birthday Presents with great appreciation."

Delenn got dressed and walked further out into the more public areas of their dwelling. She walked out onto the balcony, and saw the giant box in the gardens. Delenn smiled and ran delightedly into the great garden, open to the sky. She pulled the end of the red bow and walked into the bright silk tent.

She gasped and put a hand to her mouth.

Delenn walked slowly over to Lennier. He had grown unaccustomed to speech, so he said nothing, just smiled a small, ironic smile.

Delenn saw the card and opened it. It said, "Happy birthday, Delenn. I'm going to visit some very boring cornfields on Earth. That's a week's journey both ways. Plus random stops in between. To see the Giant Ball of String. And the Mystery Spot. I'll tell you about that Earth tradition when I get back. While I'm gone, I thought you could use an assistant."

Delenn turned away so Lennier would not see the tears in her eyes.

This was the best Birthday Present ever.

The End


End file.
